This is a "collection" of old Blogger posts that have funny moments and I'd like to keep where people can read them so enjoy!The first is a response to someone commenting that I was living a "simpler life".

Simple Life?

The following is a personal opinon about the comment "simple life", and what I think about it:

Many people (not all) say that when you homestead you are living the "simple life". Well, to me that phrase "simple life", isn't quite all that simple. I know in my early adult years I thought the "simple life" was childhood, we a child in a way (minus severe poverty) has a simple life, they have no responsiblity; and most people crave that life again. The people who think homesteading is the "simple life", well some ways it can be. You grow your own food, there by reducing your need to go to the grocery store; yep that makes life a tad easier. If your homestead is fully built with animals and crops growing when you move in.I will now share with you how "simple" my life is at this point in time.

I get up a little before six am to feed our dogs and cats (most of the dogs were "drop offs"), and start some water boiling for a mornign cup of tea for me and my partner Silver, also taking something out of our deep freezer for breakfast.Then at six am I wake the kids up to get ready for school, this takes anywhere from 20-40 minutes for them to get ready; with arguments over who has the hair brush. Sometime during this I have to give our oldest dog an allergy pill as she's allergic to flea bits and is half naked at this time because of it. While this is going on me and Silver are trying to enjoy a cup of tea, while hurring the kids up. Then when the kids are ready for school we walk to the end of the road (10 minute walk unencumbered), where the kids wait for the school bus and me and Silver use the wierless connection from the gentleman on the end of the road, so we can use the internet while we wait. *Note this is my only time of the day I am online*

after the kids have left me and Silver walk back home, then we have breakfast and decide where we are going to get our water from today; no our well is not yet running. Now we can go to the person with the internet connection, or go to the couple who live practically next door. This requires more thought than you think, while it is semi easier to go next door (semi); we have to wait till 10 am to do this and if we are low on water we need to go sooner. At the end of the road, we could sit for a bit and use the internet for a while after; we also get to listen to the gentleman who lives there for an hour or more complain about everything... and I man everything. Now, until Silver's next check arrives we have no car; it needs a new tire the regular tire and the spare are both flat. so we have to walk with our water bottles, Silver has rigged up a hand truck with a box so it is easier to carry 15 gallons at a time, plus whatever Silver or I can carry in backpacks. I will tell you now, when you have to haul water you use less of it and find ways to use less. Now imagine if you will one person with weak lungs and burcitis and one person with arthritis walking 1/4 mile with 15-30 gallons of water, it's not easy and we wind up sitting for an hour trying to cool down and catch our breath.

Next Silver will (for now) get out his chain saw and either cut brush or cut up some very dead logs for our fire wood this winter. I move the brush or log pieces, we do this until lunch or it gets too hot. Nowdepending on the day I will either do our dish washing or dishwashing and laundry next.

Now for dishes I fill a 30 pound bucket with water to rinse the dishes in, and fill a wash tub with soem dishes, soap, and water. then I wash them by hand dipping them in my rinse water then putting them in a rack to dry. I do this till either dishes are done, or the water is too ugly to use. Next if I am doing laundry that day too I empty the wash tub and if I remebered to heat the water while washing dishes (on a home made outdoor wood fire pit to save cooking gas), I fill the tub with clothes (not a lot), soap and the BOILING water. Boiling is important when dealing with kids clothes as they seem to attract dirt. then I add enough cold water so I can wash the clothes without scalding my hands in the process. This is much easier when everyone is home, then me and Silver wash and the kids hang it. Next I grab a peice of clothing and I determine how dirty it is, if it's slightly dirty them a few wrings through the soapy water will clean it then I wring it out and hang it... note I don't rinse, the rinse water from the dishes is still there; but do you want to rinse clothes in that? I don't. If I could afford the extra water I will set up another bucket of clean water for rinsing, however with clothes it will get mucky faster than dishes. Now if the clothing piece is very dirty then I pick it up and grab either liquid or bar soap and put some on it and scrub as if I were washing my hands. When satisfied that it is clean I rinse in the soapy water wring and hang. To do enough for a few days this process can take an hour or more.

Next if it is too hot to work we will sit infront of a fan and catch up on our reading. Sometimes Silver works on the plans for the house always trying to make it work better. If the weather is agreeable we keep up on the brush or wood cutting. You know it's fun chopping fire wood with an ax, everyone should try cutting up about 6 logs with an ax sometime, you'd appriciate your either pre-cut wood, gas heat, or electric heat much more.

this is done until the kids come home which at that time either me or Silver (depending on what it is) cook dinner and heat bathing water. While we are doing this the kids are doing homework. Yep bath... not shower... you know we bought one of those "solar shower" bags... it doesn't work well with five people, so out neighbor's next door lent us a bathtub to use. We bath in about 10-15 gallons of water a day, kids go first as they are in school. We heat the bath water on an outdoor wood stove(?) Silver made (I'll post a pic when I get to the library next), we have a old medical basin we use for the water heating it holds about 2.5 gallons of water and it takes from 20-30 minutes to heat it. Then we add it to the tub which has 5-10 gallons of water depending on if the kids need to wash their hair that day or not, then we adujst it based on how hot it is after the boiling water is added. Then we heat another baisn full for me and Silver, note we do not empty the tub between people that would waste the water we hauled.

After baths we send the kids intot he tent to read or in my son's case, play on his laptop; and me and Silver enjoy another cup of tea then we head in and read/ watch a movie/ play computer and then go to bed after the kids are asleep. We send the kids to bed at nine pm and it takes 10-20 minutes for them to go to sleep.

Now a few things will change in the next week or so, the first and biggest in my opinon is we are going to get the wire we need for our well. I am crossing my fingers that the pump is good and we won't have to replace that, but if all we need is he wire we'll have our own water in a week and a half at most. If the pump is no good... well I'm not sure how long it will take. Now the second change will be, we are goignt o be getting our building supplies after we buy the wire for the well so instead of brush clearing and firewood we'll be building.

I know not everyone thinks homesteading is "simple" compared to anything else, but somepeople think it is and I wanted to show how "simple" my life is. Now I will say I am healthier than I have ever been with all the work I'm doing and exercise I'm getting, plus the no junk food diet I'm on. so personally I wouldn't call this the "simple life", but I will call it the "healthier" one.

Washing your hair on the Homestead

How to wash your hair on the homestead (sans shower)

I have made a discovery since living out here and it's that you never appreciate things like showers until you have to do the following:

#1 find a wash basin of some kind that you can bend your head into.

#2 make sure you have enough water (again this might be hard if you have no well, if this is the case follow my suggestions for getting water on the last post)

#3 heat some water (again this might be hard, also you might want to watch the temps a bit closer than with dishes or clothes) I am sure you don't want the “OH MY GOD IT'S HOT” water.

#4 if you have long hair (anything past your shoulders) grab a partner as it is a team effort.

#5 pour your water into the basin

#6 pour COLD water into the basin as I'm sure it is too hot

#7 bend over the basin getting as much of your hair into the water as you can

#8 have your partner pour water over your head (watch the temps as hot for your scalp is different than hot for your hands)

#9 take hair out of water

#10 soap up hair (note you will be dripping water)

#11 put hair back in basin

#12 again have your partner pour water over your head

#13 Ring out water

Repeat for conditioner or dry

Mean Parents!

Know what's fun about living out in the woods after your kids spent a large portion of their “grow up” time in the city, learning that you are a “mean parent”. I have found out today that I am not the only one thought this following link is to one of the blogs I follow seems he's a “mean parent” too!

I was politely informed (my teary eyed screaming preteen girl) that they shouldn't have to do any work on the week ends or when they get home from school because they “worked” at school all day. Uh-huh... I don't think that’s gonna fly here right now. After my daughter informed me of this I very calmly (which I have to say I was very calm.. and can also say I didn't break out laughing at the idea either) told her what did she think would happen when we finally get our animals here? That we'd let them feed themselves and have them clean up after themselves?

That's when I was told I was mean, now mind you they were only asked to move ten log pieces a piece. A log piece was only about1 ½ ft long, and if they were too heavy they could use our hand truck to move them. You'd also think with two of the three kids out in the field doing it they'd work together (son by the way was repileing the remainder of our foam insulation), yes you would think they would... but sadly no.

the younger girl said her older sister wouldn't let her use the hand truck.. which of course the older girl said she would. So considering we had already spent 2 hours of time with younger girl crying and screaming about how unfair it was she had to do some work and her older sister wandering around for the same time. My son taking his sweet time by picking up the pieces of foam one at a time and slowly walking to the pile taking his time. Seems he didn't want to move log pieces while his youngest sibling was having a fit... I don't blame him.

So I came up with a solution, told the youngest if she really thinks that about her sister, fine. Had the older girl come into the building and sat her on a stool while her sister did her work, and would send her out when the younger one was done. Well, after the initial scream over that idea ten minutes later she was done. So I told her, “you do realize that if you had just done that little bit of work you would have been done hours ago?” She responded with a yes but that I was mean for making her do any work, now mind you she is 11 and her sister is 12; so it's not like I was asking a 5 year old to do it.

The other “reason” they think they shouldn't do any work is they say their friends don't do any. Again I managed to not laugh at my child at this idea; then I pointed out that we were now living in the country and that the farm kids generally did to work. Even in this “modern” era of farming, there are generally chores if the family has a “personal” cow, for milk or beef; or (wow) the friend of theirs that has the horse. Well I guess for a child who wants a horse the idea of taking care of it doesn't enter into their minds, I guess children just need to learn the hard way sometimes.

You know I always worry about posting something like this as I always hear how people who “homestead” or live on farms seem to have an easy time getting their kids to do things so it bugs me sometimes that if it's something we need done I have to fight over it with the kids. Which I don't want to do, and it makes it so I can't do work if I have to stand over them to get the work I set them. I always tend to wonder how these “super parents” manage it, now saying this my kids do have moments where they will do things I ask then and have utterly no problem with it. The problem is right now we need to clear out the place our house is going to go and with Silver having his RA flare up with the changes the weather has been going through in the last couple of weeks having the kids move pieces of log.. a few a day doesn't sound all that rough to me. However, it seems the kids think it's a horrible thing.; by the time I was 5 I knew if my parents told me to do something I better do it. Maybe it's just a generational thing, and the kids now who spend a lot of time playing the aforementioned video games; they don't have the capacity to do the work now?

For the record the “incident” I mentioned before happened 2 weekends ago, this weekend was spring cleaning inside. Which they did with a lot better humor than the move 10 log pieces... I still don't get how what wound up being 10 minutes of work was the “bad” job while spending almost all day cleaning house was OK?